Two Bay Area designers are re-imagining the home as a simple consumer good. If they and other entrepreneurs are successful, San Francisco’s marginal land — including parking spaces — could theoretically be retrofitted to accommodate hundreds or thousands of these barebones, movable living spaces. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Category: Housing Solutions
At a time when the median two-bedroom apartment rent, $3,550, now consumes about half the average resident’s wages, most news coverage in San Francisco has made the crisis in housing affordability sound insurmountable.
Posted inHousing, Housing Solutions
Pitching Visions of an Affordable San Francisco at ‘Hack the Housing Crisis’
San Francisco has become the epicenter of the Bay Area’s affordability crisis, with high-tech corporations moving in, rents climbing skyward, and despair and evictions sweeping through long-established but lower-income communities. Yet for the sold-out crowd of 140 housing-policy visionaries, advocates, experts and activists at Hack the Housing Crisis, San Francisco’s struggle to house its citizens is an opportunity to build a better city for all. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Posted inHousing, Housing Solutions, Land use, Media
Easy Solutions to S.F.’s Housing Crisis? Beware Unintended Consequences
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and, very often, good urban planning policy ideas too. San Francisco and the Bay Area are no strangers to that road. Yet as talk of a housing crisis grows, the region may need a new attitude more than new ideas to avoid the mistakes of the past. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Posted inBay Area, Housing, Housing Solutions
Housing Solution: Backyard Cottages Could Add One-Third More Homes to San Francisco
San Francisco could boost its housing stock by as much as one-third — if only homeowners were allowed to build tiny, freestanding cottages in their backyards. This would satisfy the city’s policy of “infill development,” putting more housing on existing underutilized land. But first, the city would have to tweak existing building regulations tailored to mid-20th century lifestyles. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Posted inCity Hall, Housing, Housing Solutions
S.F. Mayor Counts Existing Homes to Hit Affordable Housing Goal
Nearly 40% of subsidized units cited already exist
In his plan calling for 30,000 units of “new and rehabilitated” housing over six years, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee left many news organizations with the incorrect impression that one-third of those apartments would be additional units that most city residents could afford. Details of the plan actually show that a large fraction of the total consists of already-occupied public housing units that would be repaired, but add little the city’s overall affordable housing stock. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Posted inCity Hall, Housing Solutions, Media, Transportation
Linking the Google Bus With the Housing Crisis
While San Francisco’s 350 private corporate buses take thousands of well-off tech employees to work in Silicon Valley every morning, and home to their urban apartments and flats every evening, the service gap in late-night public transportation leaves many of the city’s service workers without a ride to their homes far out of town. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.
Posted inHousing Solutions, Land use
Seeking San Francisco Affordable Housing Solutions, 20 Seconds at a Time
A slew of housing experts each sped through 20 slides lasting 20 seconds apiece Tuesday night in a search for solutions to the affordable housing crisis in San Francisco. Not all of their ideas were entirely new, but some of the presenters fleshed out concepts that have been floating around San Francisco political and development circles. Part of a special report on solutions for housing affordability.